We’re having Dope-The-Halls next weekend. We brine our turkey, and as such don’t stuff the bird so I’m reluctantly going to call it dressing. I’m in need of a dressing recipe.
We have the requirement that it doesn’t contain any dairy ingredients (unless I can substitute kosher margarine for butter), as one of the attendees doesn’t eat dairy and meat together. Anything else is fair game.
Nothing too foo-foo, please!
Hungry dopers (and others) thank you!
Cornbread stuffing:
Melt butter or (ew) margarine – saute onions and celery in butter with a nice big sploodge of curry powder until soft. Mix with cornbread in crouton-sized chunks (I buy the stuffing mix, but some make from scratch). Mix in chopped apples, raisins, and chopped walnuts.
Just a suggestion, but maybe if there’s no real stuffing you don’t need any.
I’ve always been one to pass on the stuffing. So maybe something else with sweet and sour, like an English pudding.
I’ve already got a sweet-and-sour dish prepared (the purple stuff; sweet-and-sour red cabbage).
For lots of people, the stuffing is the favourite. I’d hate to disappoint 30 hungry Dopers. These guys can be mean.
My mom’s recipe, which I make every Thanksgiving. My wife likes telling people she married me for my stuffing (no hidden meaning there, I promise). The problem is that I just kinda make it – no real recipe exists, so I’ll fill in my best guesses. Also, I have no compunction about mixing dairy and meat; I’ll just put down how I make it and let you decide if you can substitute or not. Usually takes me about an hour.
For every ~7lbs of turkey:
1 loaf of bread
1 sticks butter
1 medium onion
4-5 stalks celery
4-5 cloves garlic
2 large eggs
giblets
spices*
Stale bread for a day or two. Let it get stiff, but not hard; it needs to be spread out to stale, which takes up a lot of space. This past Thanksgiving, we spread it out the morining of the day before I was making the turkey; in the evening we flipped it all over. The next morning, it was OK, although it could’ve been a little staler.
On the day you are cooking, remove giblets and neck from turkey, wash the turkey, and put it someplace it will be convenient to stuff. Cut the bread into cubes. Set aside in container(s) (I find a plastic grocery bag or two works well). Do whatever you’re gonna do with the neck and gizzard, like put them aside for soup.
Chop onion, celery, garlic, and giblets. I like onion, celery, and garlic to be finely chopped, my wife likes me to leave the giblets in large chunks (so she can pick them out and give them to me. Mmmm…giblets). Melt butter at low to medium heat in large frying pan, adding giblets, onions, celery, garlic, and spices. It might be good to let this concoction cool for a couple minutes – see next step.
Fill large mixing bowl about half way with bread crumbs. Pour about half the butter concoction onto bread crumbs. Crack egg on top of that. Mash/moosh it all together as if you were kneading bread dough, until all the bread cubes are coated. It’ll end up being a big mass o’ fairly solid goop. Be careful! The butter stuff is probably still hot; the egg on top should cool it a little, but this last Thanksgiving is the first I’ve not had my hands uncomfortable from the heat. Then pour the rest of the bread cubes on top, followed by the rest of the butter stuff, crack second egg on top of that, and repeat the mashing/mooshing.
Put the stuffing in the turkey, both in the body and up by the neck. Add about 45 min to an hour to the cooking time for the turkey. I usually make an extra serving that doesn’t fit in the turkey also. This just gets put in a corning ware dish, covered, and baked at 325 for 45 min to an hour.
This is the first time I’ve ever written this down; I’m gonna have to print off a copy for my wife, who’s kinda mystified by the whole process.